22 May 2004	Saturday	02 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

NEW DELHI, May 21: Days after turning down India's premiership, a tearful Sonia Gandhi on Friday took time out from political horse trading to sprinkle rose petals on a memorial to her husband Rajiv, killed by a female suicide bomber 13 years ago.

Dressed in a grey cotton sari and white blouse, Italian-born Gandhi, 57, was escorted by son Rahul to the Vir Bhumi (Land of the Brave) memorial in New Delhi. After placing handfuls of red rose petals at the memorial, she stood for a minute with folded hands before walking barefoot around the square, grey granite platform, which was decorated by white flowers.

Rahul Gandhi, 33, elected to parliament in the recently held polls, too paid homage to his late father, killed May 21, 1991 by a woman suicide bomber said by India to be a member of Sri Lanka's Tamil separatists.

Daughter Priyanka was not at the ceremony, with organizer Romi Chopra saying the mother of two small children may have been detained by family chores. "The tribute today has a special meaning for us as the Congress party, and I am sure for Mrs Gandhi too, who has led the party to such a great victory," in India's recent parliamentary polls, said a senior Congress leader.

Congress supporters who gathered at the distant Sriperumbudur town of southern Tamil Nadu state appeared disappointed as Sonia Gandhi did not turn up at the site of Rajiv's grotesque assassination on a equally-sultry nite in 1991.

"Our Congress leaders should have been here to pay homage to Rajiv Gandhi and dedicate the Congress victory to him instead, they are busy bargaining for ministerial berths in Delhi," said K. K. Sulaiman, a survivor of the attack which killed 14 others beside Rajiv.

"They have forgotten Rajiv Gandhi," said Sulaiman, who lost a finger when the powerful bomb exploded while Rajiv was receiving garlands from women supporters at an election rally.

The 119-year-old Congress - which led India to its independence from British control in 1947 and has ruled the country for more than four decades - scored a surprise victory over the outgoing Hindu nationalist government in the April-May polls.

It bettered its own tally from 109 seats in the outgoing parliament to 145 and emerged as the single largest party, ahead of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which secured 138 seats.

Its victory is being ascribed to Sonia's criss-crossing India to campaign among rural voters who felt excluded from the economic boom the Hindu nationalists trumpeted as their achievement. -AFP